Robert Hass Quotes

It is particularly appropriate that we unveil this campaign on this first day of the annual international coastal clean-up effort. Beach cleanups are something each of us can do any time of the year. I'm proud to be participating in the cleanup efforts today and I encourage everyone to make the time for these types of activities.

I have a lifelong devotion to public service.

I had the opportunity at Duke to start doing things in the community, and it's something I continue to do even 20 years later.

The most helpful piece of advice that I could give to anybody is to select a charity, or create a charity, that you really feel passionate about and if you do, don't give up.

I have been into social work since 45 years, and at an average, every day for one or two hours, I have been engaging in social discourses. It is not a small thing.

For us, conservation work isn't just what we do. It's who we are. It's really defined us that this is what we've dedicated our lives to.

I am a party worker ant - always have been, always will be.

I have a beautiful desk. I rarely sit behind it. That's not where my job is. My job is in the community.

There are men who struggle for a day and they are good. There are men who struggle for a year and they are better. There are men who struggle many years, and they are better still. But there are those who struggle all their lives: These are the indispensable ones.

Millennium Trails will be very tangible gifts to the future. We will walk on them and hike on them and bike on them. They will be accessible to people of all ages and abilities. But in a very important way they represent more than the tangible effect of the trail. They represent a commitment and an investment in what kind of country we want in the next century.

Because so few people make an actual long term commitment to what they're building, the ones that do have a huge advantage.

Perseverance is my biggest lesson. When I started to get involved in environmental protection some years ago, my people did not take it seriously and they never considered it important. But today, people look at what I do and they truly recognize those efforts, and eventually they join you as "environmental activists" too!

To green our country, regular people will have to put on hard hats and work boots, roll up their sleeves - and get to work.

I had been a Girl Scout from the time I was 8 to the time I was 18 years old. I had belonged to my church organization and youth groups. But, you never really found a way that you could make a change.

All the people that still believed in me, after seven years - it's a long time.

People may come to our communities because they want to serve the poor; they will only stay once they have discovered that they themselves are poor.

I want to play every day. This year will be absolutely no different.

Look at Obama - he is now [2015] trying to help us environmentally but he should have done it eight years ago. He's trying to salvage his legacy and trying to do something good but we needed for him to show leadership from day one.

Perseverance has kept me going over the years. Things rarely happen overnight. Filmmakers should be prepared for many years of hard work. The sheer toil can be healthy and exhilarating.

That's why I work every day. Ev-er-y day. I want to knock people out.

Making the majors is not as hard as staying there, staying interested day after day. It's like being married. The hardest part is to stay married.

There is no secret, you try and never stop trying. If you have to sleep all day, and get up the next day, you keep trying. If you have to take 3 years away, do it and then come back. But it's all about trying. Not everything will work, but some things will, and you have to try.

I am gratified on a regular basis by the people I meet all across the country who dedicate their efforts to protecting the environment and public health and are making a difference. The great thing about working on important issues is all of the other people you meet doing the same thing.

Sometimes [genius] is just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.